Review: Red Door Escape Room

RATING: 1 Keys RESULT: Win REMAINING: 3:26

Sometimes a line is not meant to be crossed. This game crosses that line.

Story

A mysterious dwelling, a dark secret, and the foreboding presence of a shadowy enemy await you.

Confinement’s story is vague and confusing, and the introduction video muddies the water further. However, the narrative slowly unravels during the game, and it is not at all what we expected. In fact, it becomes very disturbing.

We quickly learn that we our in the house of a young couple who made a decision that has potentially moral implications. Namely, the couple had an abortion, which is obviously a taboo topic to include into the narrative of an escape room.

Not only is the story confusing, but it feels like Red Door is trying to push its own agenda on this touchy subject. There is no warning prior to the game that it could make us uneasy – and it succeeded in doing just that.

Scenic

We start our journey in a tiny study with green painted walls, and there are several pieces of white furniture. It has an ordinary feel to it, but it looks at bit dated. We are not sure if this is intentional or if it is in dire need of upkeep.

As we make our way further into the house, we come across a wardrobe with a few pieces of clothing stuffed inside and a desk resting against the wall. This area is not consistent with the first room, which causes the game to feel random instead of seamlessly segueing from one space to another.

The final area is what we assume to be the master bedroom of the house because it is the largest space. However, it is very dimly lit, so the darkness makes it near impossible to identify the room. We mainly see the shadows of a table and a few other furniture items.

Puzzles

The steps in Confinement are linear with not much variety. There is a lot of scavenging for objects – including finding a flashlight so that we can actually see.

Many of the activities are ones we have seen time and time again such as using a decoder wheel, and no step seems to relate to a narrative. How could it? We are still not sure why we are here or what our goal is other than solving a few random puzzles.

In the darkest area of the game, we find a puzzle that we always loathe seeing inside of an escape room. Can you guess what is is? That’s right – we had to piece together a jigsaw puzzle while we could barely see. One team member had to stand there holding the flashlight while watching.

Overall

Confinement touches on a taboo subject, and they combine it with “haunt” elements. I use haunt loosely because the scary parts are merely the game master banging on the walls. It comes across as cheesy instead of spooky, and it does nothing to advance the story, or lack thereof.

I think it is worth a warning that anyone with strict views on abortion should most likely not play this room. In fact, there is one gruesome scene in the game that would be difficult to even discuss in this review.

Red Door has created a room that can be seen as crossing the line. The experience is designed to push their social views onto players and to make opposing views feel like sinners.